On this day in 1940, Walter P. Chrysler, the founder of Chrysler Corp., passed away at age 65. Chrysler and his company had a tremendous impact on manufacturing and the automotive industry.
Walter Chrysler became chairman of Maxwell Motor Corp. in 1921, which would become Chrysler Corp. in 1925. The Chrysler Six was introduced in 1924 for $1,565 and featured a high-compression six-cylinder engine and standard four-wheel hydraulic brakes.
Chrysler Corp. went on to become one of the Big Three automakers in America in 1929, along with GM and Ford.
Over time, the Chrysler Corp. has brought high-compression engines, four-wheel hydraulic brakes, overdrive, the first key-operated ignition, all-electric window lifts, electric windshield wipers, cruise control, and the first line of minivans to the automotive industry, just to name a few.
Here, Chrysler Corp. promotes some of the vehicles' features in a musical advertisement from the 1950s:
Despite facing financial struggles in 2008 during the automobile crisis, Chrysler, with the help of Fiat, gained traction again. Fiat and Chrysler officially fully merged in 2014.
See an advertisement for the 1924 Chrysler Six below: